Citizens are shaping EU’s main investment policy

The European Commission (DG REGIO) and the OECD are working together to promote innovative citizen participation in cohesion policy. EU cohesion policy aims to strengthen economic and social cohesion by reducing disparities in the level of development between regions, making it relevant for citizens to have their say regarding these policies.

Participation is one of the key principles of cohesion policy, as citizens have an important role to play in making public authorities more transparent and accountable and in making public investment more efficient and effective. The OECD is providing technical assistance to managing authorities, intermediaries, and beneficiaries in Europe to implement citizen participation initiatives until 2025.

The Emilia-Romagna Managing Authority oversees the implementation of territorial development strategies in its region, which includes internal and mountain areas. Emilia-Romagna has previously worked with the OECD in the development of the Citizen Participation Playbook for the Emilia-Romagna Region.

The current pilot aims to build a democratic culture among young people in the Apennino Emiliano area, involving students in the green transition at the school level:

• Students’ Assembly in which a randomly chosen group of students will learn, deliberate, and provide insights for implementing sustainability and climate change projects included in the territorial strategy.

As part of the first phase of the OECD-DG REGIO collaboration, the OECD provided guidance to design and implement Cantabria’s first citizens’ jury. The jury identified measures to help Cantabria move towards a low-carbon economy, considering the context of a rural-urban divide that this initiative aims to overcome.

This current pilot aims to build on the jury’s recommendations, close the deliberative process’s feedback loop, and involving the public in the implementation of the Jury’s recommendations :

• Closing the feedback loop: properly communicate results of the Besaya Delibera Citizen Jury to participants and the broader public.
• Citizen Commission: citizens and stakeholders will be invited to suggest policy priorities to implement the recommendations of the Besaya Citizen Jury that have been adopted by the Cantabrian authorities.
• Public consultation: the priorly suggested policy priorities will be shared with the broader public.

As part of the first phase of the OECD-DG REGIO collaboration, the OECD developed a tailored guide for CEUTP on how to better involve citizens in transport policies.

This current pilot aims to create a three-stage process to reach out to a broad public through different means with the objective of collectively shape the accessibility of rail transport and the future of public transport in GZM Metropolis.

• Online survey to map broad opinions and needs of citizens across GZM Metropolis.
• Research walks: 12 interactive consultations with targeted groups (elder, students, residents, etc.) will build concrete knowledge that will feed the deliberative jury.
• Deliberative jury: a randomly selected group of GZM residents will receive the inputs from previous stages and give recommendations on how to improve the access and usability of the stations.
  

As part of Ramnicu Valcea’s Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan and Sustainable Urban Agenda, the local council — and its partner, Valcea Community Foundation, aim to engage citizens to increase usage of public transportation, and better involve the community in shaping decisions regarding public transport.

The aim of this pilot is to implement the first representative deliberative process with random selection in Romania:

• Citizen Council on Public Transport: This process would allow to involve key stakeholders as well as randomly selected citizens, following a selection criteria to be defined with the Municipality of Ramnicu Valcea and the transport operator. Citizens will go through a learning stage prior to deliberate and come up with collective recommendations.

The municipality of Banska Bystrica’s Integrated Territorial Strategy (ITS) will have an Action Plan that will include projects to be implemented.

The current pilot aims at involving citizens and stakeholders in the development and prioritisation of projects that can then be integrated in the ITS Action Plan :

• Ideathon: co-creation methodology to develop project proposals with citizens and stakeholders
• Prioritisation: voting mechanism to prioritise projects developed during the ideathon.
• Digital infrastructure: building on this case study, the Municipality will deploy a digital platform for citizen participation.

The South Muntenia Regional Development Agency (SMRDA) oversees the financing of 14 local authorities’ Integrated Territorial Strategies (ITS). SMRDA has selected Dambovita County Council to pilot this methodology in 2023.

The current pilot aims at increasing the transparency and impact of South Muntenia ROP 2021–2027 by involving citizens and stakeholders in the design and implementation of the projects.

• Public Dialogues: Citizens and stakeholders will be invited to provide feedback and enrich the proposed projects. This is also moment for the County and SMRDA to communicate and inform the public about the Strategy and the benefits of cohesion policy.
• Prioritization: citizens will be invited to vote among different projects that will be then integrated and reflected in the ITS. 

The OECD and DG REGIO are very pleased to announce that from July, new pilots will join this project:

7. Brussels Region (Belgium) and Metrolab.Brussels will work in testing and refining a toolkit of different innovative approaches to involve citizens in local public decision.

8. Cataluña (Spain) and the Professional College of Political Scientists and Sociologists of Catalonia will work on implementing an innovative approach to participatory budgeting, where citizens and civil society will participate in regard to key elements of setting the budget policy and the annual budget formulation.

9. Lazio Region (Italy) and ANCI Lazio will design and implement a civic monitoring methodology to increase transparency and accountability of the municipal strategy.

As part of the capacity building and learning activities, the OECD organised an in-person seminar in Paris on June 7 and 8, 2023 in the context of TAIEX REGIO Peer2Peer. Participants were invited to a series of working and social activities focused on sharing learnings, challenges, and planning for the next phases.

Participants were invited to reflect on the main challenges they face or will face when moving from experimentation to a systemic culture of participation. These challenges are not specific to the cohesion policy community, and can then feed the overall discussion on how to build stronger democratic participation.

1. Integrate citizen participation in formal processes, be it political, electoral, or administrative, to break this isolated or parallel state in which these efforts currently exist vis-à-vis formal decision-making spaces.

2. Build environment that supports flexibility and experimentation needs to be created in public administration, so that civil servants feel more comfortable with exploring new practices and approaches to policy.

3. For the participation to be effective and impactful, considering the diversity component and ensuring inclusion of marginalised or underrepresented people are crucial steps to faithfully represent the demographic composition of its society.

4. Citizens require incentives, be they symbolic or financial, as well as time for them to commit to the participatory process.

5. Need to build and strengthen a culture of participation to make it scalable. This includes approaches in and out of government, to establish a democratic infrastructure to promote participatory decision-making, involving regulation, skills development, toolkit creation, spaces, platforms, and shared methodologies. Participants raised the possibility to make participation mandatory, as a legal obligation in the feasibility studies phase, before a decision is reached.

6. Capacity building to equip both civil servants and civil society with the skills needed to better support and participate in such processes.

7. Building trust between citizens and government, so that citizens trust their government and that their participation has weight in governmental decision-making. Likewise, that governments trust their citizens to give actionable and valuable input in key policy issues.

8. Governments need to adapt and create formal spaces for participation, integrated in their administrative culture.

9. Prioritize resource allocation for these processes, namely impactful participation can only be achieved with dedicated financial, human, or technical resources.

10. Strengthen networks and bonds of mutual learning and support are crucial aspects to demystify participation, breaking the initial barriers and resistances stemming from fear or ignorance, to be able to scale good practices and support groups.